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Forums - Nintendo - Wii U is more indie friendly than Wii ever was says eShop developer

Wii U is a better console for independent developers who are creating games for the Wii U eShop than the Wii. That's the word from Chasing Aurora developer Martin Pichlmair who told Official Nintendo Magazine what he thinks of Nintendo's new console.

Chasing Aurora is a lovely looking eShop flying game which sees you helping a bird navigate through the Alps. With Broken Rules aiming to release the game for Wii U launch day, it's clear that the company is enamoured with the console.

 

"I can not talk about the new eShop in detail," said Pichlmair. "What I do know is that Nintendo is doing everything to make this console much more open, social and indie-friendly than the Wii ever was."

Pichlmair believes this is reflected in the line-up of Wii U launch games. "There are people at Nintendo who know where innovative games come from. And if you look at the launch lineup you can clearly see that those people have had a say in it. At the same time, the Wii U with its various controller configurations calls for experimental games of all kinds and Nintendo is always eager to have games make good use of its console's innovations."

Broken Rules will be looking to do this with its asymmetric multiplayer mode which puts one player in charge of the Wii U GamePad.

Look out for our full interview with Broken Rules soon.

http://www.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/42408/wii-u-is-more-indie-friendly-than-wii-ever-was-dev/



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Yup, even if you ignore the rumours that Nintendo are taking a smaller cut from sales and have reduced the restrictions that hamper indie development for PSN and Live the fact that Nintendo are giving developers free use of Greenhills' MULTI IDE, Autodesk middleware, Havok middleware and the Unity Engine is enough to make the Wii U the go to console for indie developers. That's tens of thousands of pounds worth of toys for developers to play with for the price of leasing a dev kit.



I've said it once and I'll say it again. The Wii U is the best system for new devs in the industry.



Broken Rules is developing Chasing Aurora? The hype has been doubled!



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I wonder if this is because of how indie friendly the mobile industry is? Of course its really hard to market in the mobile industry for indie developers



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The real question is if consumers will actually buy into digital titles on the WiiU.

If there's a disconnect between users and purchasing, then all of the efforts by Nintendo to woo developers will be for naught. My biggest worry is if users will purchase larger HDDs, and how often they do it. If few users purchase additional space, it'll be disastrous for the ecosystem. Furthermore, they need a large userbase to sell to - so it goes back to the retail side to get people into the door. I don't believe many people buy a console (yet) for digital offerings, so the onus is on the rest of what Nintendo does.

It'll be interesting to see how it pays off in a few months, though.



Back from the dead, I'm afraid.